Quantum Leaps and Summer Vacation

As I work on the plans for our family summer vacation today, I started to think about the opportunity we have to make quantum leaps.

I have tended to like summer and winter because they are times when certain expectations slow down. I don’t usually associate these times with quantum leaps. Instead, I’ve tended to see these seasons as ones when big changes aren’t really possible.

Yet, I have to remind myself that remarkable discoveries, breakthroughs and accomplishments can happen at any time. If you could make a quantum leap in any of your life or your whole life in the next three months, what would it be?

I’m taking my family on a road trip this summer. In the course of a few weeks we’ll be driving across a couple thousand miles of roads across America.

A few years ago, we drove 5000 miles in 9 days. There was work involved in that trip, but compared to what it would have taken a hundred years ago to make the same trip, it was simple. The ability to make a cross country trip is a quantum leap that we don’t think about much.

I’m just an average American, with perhaps an above average love of road trips. For me, making road trips is easy, fun, and part of a long-term goal for my kids.

For some people, taking a vacation every year is a frivolous, waste of money. I sometimes wonder if people who can’t see the value of travel also have trouble making quantum leaps.

There’s something about going on adventures to places you’ve never been that deepens your ability to believe that things can change drastically in an instant. You see different ways of living are possible when you travel Within a few hours, sometimes even a few minutes, you can be seeing an entirely different type of landscape and culture.

Quantum leaps aren’t limited to travel. They are all around us. And some of them are making us nervous, because quantum leaps in outsourcing, technology, etc are changing the way of life in America. We don’t tend to notice how available quantum leaps are to us. If we don’t take advantage of the tools that humankind has created, we won’t make the journeys or quantum leaps that we could.

What would you really love to do in the next 90 days that you’ve never done before? With some imagination, determination, and focused play, you just might surprise yourself at the places you could see or the person you could become.

For today, just imagine what it would feel like to make a quantum leap in the next 90 days!

Perhaps over the next few days, together we can brainstorm some ways to radically change our lives, which aren’t necessarily magical, but leave us feeling that life is bigger and more wondrous than we imagined!

I saw the Redwoods and Sequoias in a past roadtrip around California — it was one of the best adventures I’ve been on. It’s amazing how old some of these trees are. Many of them were alive when Julius Caesar was alive. I hope to go visit them again some day. 🙂

The quantum leap! I go to college around the corner from there and my mother works in the building next to the theatre in the photo. What a coinkydink. Have a good time on the road trip! Sounds amazing.

That is a wonderful coinkydink! You never know how your blogs connect with other people. It’s so great to know someone who sees the Quantum Leap sculpture often!
Do you like the sculpture? It’s probably not allowed, but it looked like the kind of scupture that would be fun to climb!
I’m really looking forward to the road trip, so thank you for your well wishes too!

I do like it, it caused a bit of controversy because it cost so much and a lot of people don’t like it but I think that it’s a good idea to represent. And, no, unfortunately you can’t climb it. What doesn’t show up in the picture is that it actually isn’t quite at street level, you have to go down a bit before you get there and there are gates and things to get past. I’m sure some rebels or other have had a go though!

Great post. If I were to take a quantum leap it would be either to adopt a child or quit my job and focus on starting my own business – but it feels so scarey! Thanks for a thought-provoking post! Have a woonderful adventure. It sounds glorious!